


Shaky

by thebriars



Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: Boys In Love, M/M, Misunderstandings, Post-War, What is Plot?, funky formatting forever, hella confusing lol, i do not know, mmmm the fuck @ me, wow my fav
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-17 15:54:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16098887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebriars/pseuds/thebriars
Summary: He could still press his fingers to the star-shaped blotch of pink under his heart and feel the frighteningly desolate space beneath. It lurked under his skin, a tiger waiting to pounce, teeth bared and claws glinting.•••Tommy and Alex, during and after the war and everything in between.





	Shaky

**Author's Note:**

> hi i am here now
> 
> i kept typing funkirk instead of dunkirk and i can’t tell if my tears are from laughter or gibsonnnnn

The war was over and his hands were shaky.

 

•••

 

Tommy had been home for seven months already, his leg twisted wrong and achy when he stood too long, but the idea that it was still burning on across the channel was eating at the back of his mind.

Maybe it had something to do with his friends. Despite Tommy’s logical part telling him that growing to care for dead men walking was dangerous, he couldn’t deny that part of his heart lived on in his comrades. Maybe it had something to do with the hollowness that rose within his stomach some days when he missed the adrenaline and the supposed glory. Of course, there were also days when he felt grimy from the inside out and the tang of blood colored his tongue and nose, and he thought about the man with blue eyes he killed on the streets of Envermeu.

Maybe it had something to do with Alex.

Tommy found those wide, dark eyes haunting his dreams more and more the longer they were apart. He found himself waking in a state of discomfort after dreaming of calloused hands running from his jaw to his collarbone and down, down, down. He knew he should hate it, should feel dirty and wrong for longing for another man in that way, and yet...

Every time he limped down to the post box, Tommy’s heart jumped at the idea of discovering he’d been sent a coveted letter from Alex. He poured over those slanted words and chanted them again and again in his mind until they stuck to the inside of his throat and he whispered them aloud at night while giddiness bubbled within him. The cheap army-issue paper bent beneath his fingers and turned soft at the creases and he imagined Alex's hands there, too. 

Still, for every night he dreamed of Alex, he dreamed of water in his lungs and Gibson’s frightened eyes in the gut of that damned boat and the hot cling of oil on his skin. He dreamt he was buried to the waist in soft sand, left to struggle to free his legs in a vain attempt to escape the rising tide.

He woke with his own teeth imprinted in the flesh between his finger and thumb and specks of red budding there. He lay in bed and watched the sunrise trace over the water stains in the ceiling and cursed his damned leg for keeping them apart.

It all came back to Alex, the blood and the water and the sand and the oil and the pain in his leg. Everything filtered back to calloused hands and wide, dark eyes.

Tommy tucked the army-issue paper into his breast pocket and let himself pretend the letters spoke of things other than the war and their unit and Alex’s well wishes in regards to Tommy’s stupid fuckin’ leg.

 

•••

 

It was confusing, how it all happened.

There was Dunkirk and a boat and a train and it stuck to him like fly paper. He’d been naive to true war until that beach and the ocean cold below him. It was hell like no other, but five years had passed and Tommy didn’t dwell on it during waking hours. And then, there was Envermeu and a young man with blue eyes and delicate fingers and strong cheek bones and a bullet in his chest and Tommy felt Alex’s hands around his wrist as he dragged him away.

Later, much later, there was that hellhole on the Dutch border, and his pants were ripped and stained crimson and Alex was holding his hips down while the medic picked out wicked shards of metal and he realized the low, whimpered keen was coming from him.

The in-between was hazy.

 

•••

 

He nearly felt slighted, which was petulant and dumb, that he found out from the papers. Tommy’s hands tightened at the edge and the words turned sweet and sour and sweet again. Hitler dead; war over; troops to return soon.

Alex was coming home.

Except, Tommy had no claim to him. Alex was a charmer, and he surely had a thousand girls back at home who would be clamoring over a handsome hero. Tommy bit the inside of his cheek and his hands crumpled the paper more.

He stood on his front steps, his bum leg hovering just over the ground, clutching the paper, for longer than he cared to admit.

 

•••

 

Alex sent a frenzied note telling him to be at King’s Cross so they could get a drink as soon as he was home, and hope warmed Tommy’s insides. Maybe it was mutual, maybe just the slightest bit.

But still, the war was over and the all-consuming emptiness threatened again, for now even Tommy’s far-off sense of purpose was gone. He went home that night and stared at the darkened window and wondered what to do next. He’d taken an interest in medicine after his leg incident and had been spending his afternoons observing from afar at the army hospital down the road, and yet the prospect of slaving over a medical degree for the remaining years of his youth was unfavorable, to say the least.

Tommy curled in on himself and let the water pull him under into a strangely dreamless sleep.

 

•••

 

Tommy met Alex at King’s on a hazy morning, blinking through the steam and waiting for a familiar flash of dark hair in the crowd.

A couple guys from his unit passed, bumping shoulders and poking at his cane, and Tommy flushed at their jests. He’d never told Alex about the cane and the limp. Nerves tingled in his fingertips and he swallowed.

“Tommy! Hey, Tom!”

He turned so fast he nearly fell, except Alex was there with a steadying hand and a barrage of questions and a brow furrowed in concern.

“Hi,” Tommy said, belated and suddenly drained.

“Good lord, mate; what happened to you?”

“Weren’t you there?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know...” Alex gestured to Tommy’s cane and adjusted his bag.

Tommy shrugged. “It’s fine. It’ll get better and then I shouldn’t need this thing.”

Alex nodded. “Right.”

They paused there on the platform, Alex’s hand still on Tommy’s shoulder, and his eyes burned so bright they nearly seemed golden.

A friend of Alex’s came by, checking his shoulder into Alex’s back, and the resounding jostle shook Tommy from the spell, and the roar of the engine and the sharp stench of steam came rushing in.

Tommy took the moment to gather himself, a breath or two and shifting his leg around while Alex and the friend made promises to keep in touch. Jealousy burned in Tommy’s heart for a moment before the strange happy embarrassment of Alex’s concern washed over him.

“D’ya want a drink? I’m dying for something cold. Holland’s a lot hotter than I thought it would be,” Alex huffed, shouldering his bag and making for the exit. Tommy scrambled to move at his pace.

It as peaceful to walk- or, rather, hobble- together again. Alex chatted away about the last few months and receiving the news of Hitler’s death and the rambunctious trip home. Tommy listened, for he had nothing to say, and focused on Alex’s fast lips and his awful leg.

 

•••

 

That night, Alex slept on the couch and Tommy played with the frayed corner of a particularly interesting letter. Alex had talked about a pretty girl from a little village in Holland with green eyes who brought him sweet breads while they waited for news from Berlin.

 

_She’s cute as all get out, got these big eyes that make you want to say shit like “emerald” and “forest green”. She likes me, too. Can’t talk to me or anything, not a word of English in her, but still. But I don’t feel anything, you know? I don’t want to bed her or wed her or anything. All the guys keep trying to find flowers and shit to give the girls in town, but I don’t care. I don’t know how to explain it. The war makes you think, I guess, what with all the sitting and waiting. Tommy, honest to God, I think I’m gonna lose my mind out here._

 

Tommy traced the writing, studying its sudden broader strokes and shaky lines as Alex’s hand betrayed his calm words. It made Tommy’s heart clench in hope.

He flicked the soft, folded paper back and forth and back and forth again, eyes sliding shut.

 

•••

 

He woke with a gasp and the feeling of water pressing down on his chest.

Alex was clanging around in the kitchen, grumbling about Tommy’s less-than stellar grocery supply. It helped snap him from the stupor, a lightning flash bright as day, sending shockwaves out like a scream, and Tommy remembered it all.

 

•••

 

There were a couple things Tommy knew: his leg hurt like nothing had before, it was loud and cold and hard around him, and the sky looked brown.

The fighting was worse than it had been, brutal and desperate, like nails clawing at an iron hull and like wild animals tearing at a carcass. It was gritty and it left a steely taste in Tommy’s throat. It left dirt and gunpowder under their nails and blood in the cracks of their skin and Tommy prayed to camp near a river so he could scrub it all off. It seemed as though the entirety of Holland clung to his skin.

They’d started shooting just as gray skies parted for the sunrise, and Alex had looked nearly giddy as round after round flew over their heads.

It had steadily worsened as blue painted over the startling heavens above, and Tommy had yanked Alex down more than once to keep him from the shower of ammunition, his own gun cold and untouched. His blood pounded in his ears like thunder and Alex was trying to pull out of his protective grasp and everything was moving too fast and too hot and too hard until a deafening silence fell and the grenade he should have seen coming came over the mound of earth and suddenly his leg was on fire, surely split in half or gone altogether.

He had forgotten that, losing it to the blurry brown sky and the rumbling whine in his chest and Alex’s hands holding his hips down while the medic- James? John?- pulled out an endless supply of shards.

 

•••

 

Maybe it would have been best if he had forgotten it forever.

Tommy sank back down into his bed and stared at the ceiling and wondered if Alex remembered it, too.

He gulped and rubbed his hands over his face as if he could scrub it all away. It was a mixture of shame and  _God, does he think he owes me?_ and something else.

When he was younger, Tommy liked to think he’d be a hero like his father. If war ever came to them, he’d be brave and win medals and his name would be plastered across the headlines. He’d fly planes and make daring landings or sail the ocean and rescue his peers from a sinking ship or something equally dazzling.

Turns out, the moment he was stuck in combat, instinct kicked in and he turned tail and ducked. It seemed the whole point of war was to ignore survival, and he couldn’t even do that.

Alex must think so little of him.

 

•••

 

“Tom, don’t you have any food? Some eggs? Tomato?”

Tommy shrugged. “Dunno.” He dropped his head into his hands and took a deep breath, dragging his face up to meet Alex’s concerned stare.

“You good there, mate?”

“Yeah, sorry, I’m fine.” Alex looked like he wanted more of an explanation, so Tommy sighed a little and stood to pour himself some coffee. “Long night, I guess.”

Alex hummed, not quite satisfied, but not interested enough to press further. Tommy couldn’t tell if he was relieved or abashed. Either way, he was one shitty friend.

 

•••

 

The ride back to the field hospital had been indescribably awful. The road was riddled with potholes and the whole countryside stank of steel and blood. Tommy’s vision kept blurring- black to white and black again- and he vaguely heard a medic curse and mention something lodged in his chest and suddenly the pain there clicked into place.

_Fuck._

He’d wanted Alex, who knew all the right jokes and looks and the way to hold his hand so Tommy could squeeze it when the pain rocketed.

This wasn’t his first time around the block when it came to wounds. Tommy’s luck seemed to run out, or, at least, diminish, after Dunkirk. A bullet in his arm and a bad case of pneumonia one winter and a nasty burn scar running up his spine all haunted Tommy over the next few years, phantom pains and ghostly white slivers of skin sliding in the back of his mind.

Despite his numerous injuries and trips to hospitals and shit, Alex had always been there, until he wasn’t and Tommy was alone in the bed of a medical truck, dying a thousand times over.

He could still press his fingers to the star-shaped blotch of pink under his heart and feel the frighteningly desolate space beneath. It lurked under his skin, a tiger waiting to pounce, teeth bared and claws glinting.

Tommy had stared up at the brown sky and longed, ached, yearned for Alex.

 

•••

 

“Can’t really believe it’s over,” Alex said that afternoon, voice nearly breathy and eyes edging wistful.

Tommy, hand shading his eyes from his spot on the ground, staring up into the sun, watched as Alex shifted onto his side with a strange purpose. “The war?”

Alex didn’t even make a snide comment, so Tommy sunk back into the grass of the park and quieted his mind, ready for whatever Alex was going to say.

“It’s just that I lived for it, even before it happened. Like I was born to fight and die young and live the glory shit they all talk about and then something went wrong and I... didn’t?”

Tommy didn’t move, didn’t say anything. Alex huffed, more to himself or fate than to anything concrete.

“Just don’t know what to do. I’ve got nothing to fight for and real life feels like fantasy, like I’m gonna wake up soon and be back on that beach. Tommy, pinch me.” Alex trust out an arm and Tommy complied, eyebrows raised.

They left it there, untouched, lying in the sun. Alex dosed off and Tommy traced circles on his own palm, remembering the way the sand and the water and the dirt had felt there, solid and real, and Tommy felt more dead than he ever had.

 

•••

 

Alex came home late that night, crashing on the couch long after Tommy had pretended to retire. He watched his silhouette and wondered if he’d found some other green-eyed beauty to romance. Tommy’s stomach churned, and he rolled to face the wall.

Unfounded jealousy ate away at his heart and him mind, driving him to his own downfall. He could feel it. It was shameful and painful and everything in between.

He flicked at the corner of the letter again, a soft, rhythmic  _thwap_ that reminded him of water droplets on his tent roof in Holland, Alex breathing steadily beside him, a moment of respite well spent.

There wasn’t really anywhere to take it all. Alex was sleeping on the couch and paying for groceries, a simple living situation, innocent until Tommy slipped up (which he surely would). He was a liability to himself and to Alex, too, and  _God_ why couldn’t he be normal?

He’d wait, bide his time, hope his feelings worked themselves out so he could simply have a roommate again.

 

•••

 

Alex wanted ice cream.

It was hot, suddenly, even as November inched to a close. Sun glinted in the painted trees, vibrant and bright and nearly too perfect. Tommy knew a little place on the other side of the park, and Alex wouldn’t shut up about how much he’d missed ice cream. Tommy remembered a little town on the edge of France, nearly untouched by the war, a rarity, and an old man and his kindly niece and his ice cream store.

It was dreamlike, what with the sun and the leaves and the quiet Saturday feeling and Alex’s lovely eyes, nearly amber in the golden light, and the sweetness of the air and the ice cream. Tommy wondered if it was heaven or hell, and eventually came to the unfathomable conclusion that it was both. He was destined to suffer in a perfect world, so close to true happiness that he could taste it in the back of his throat. A novel torture.

“Nice out,” Alex said between mouthfuls, picking at the soft earth beneath them. They’d found a patch of sun in the park, just like last time. Tommy had begun to think that they were cursed to live forever in a sunny loop of the park and ice cream and amber eyes.

“Yeah,” Tommy said. He wished he talked more. Maybe Alex would like him more if he was social.

Alex sighed heavily and glanced back at Tommy with something unfathomable in his eyes. “I’m in love with someone.”

The warmth grew bitter and Tommy blinked. “Really?”

“I know. Me, of all people,” Alec scoffed, taking a final bite and falling backwards, dangerously close to Tommy’s thigh. It seemed the universe was out to destroy him. “It’s just that I’ve got this friend who’s been great ever since I got back. Helping out and listening and all that shit.”

“That’s good.” Tommy flipped through everything he could say- something profound, something sweet, something honest or supportive or congratulatory- and settled on a brief silence.

Alex hummed.

Looking back, it sounded shallow. “I mean, I’m glad you have someone who makes you feel happy. You deserve it.”

A silence fell and Tommy felt like he was dying all over again.

 

•••

 

Later, a few drinks in, Alex told him more.

“They’re just... pretty, right? Big brown eyes and freckles and delicate fingers. Really helped out in the war, too, and they just listen to me when I need them too. Perfect, honestly.”

The space behind Tommy’s ears felt tight and fuzzy and he knew that the more he drank, the more danger he crafted. “Why don’t you tell ‘em, then?”

Alex shrugged, lounging over the armchair with a look of near indifference on his face. “Dunno how well they’d take it.”

“Do it. I mean, why not? It’s all pretty meaningless in the end.”

Alex’s jaw shifted as if he was chewing it over, running the idea back and forth in his mind. Tommy sank back into the sofa and closed his eyes against a spinning world.

 

•••

 

It was the sort of evening where the sunset didn’t linger and darkness came with the snap of your fingers and the city fell quiet long before it usually did. Alex had elected to stay in, curled up in the armchair again with a notebook and a pen, frantically scratching away as if a thousand thoughts had been building up and he was going to explode any minute.

Tommy sat at the foot of his bed, looking through the latest letters from his family. Or, rather, pretending to. Alex had been eating away at his mind again, the mystery lover pulling at him until he gave in and fell back into jealousy.

He tried to piece it all together, put it in a neat little list in his mind, just trying to organize his storm of thoughts into something he could work with.

An uneventful childhood in a small village outside of London, a father encouraging him to sign up for the war just like he did, a short stint in France and a couple days on that horrendous beach, Alex with his wild eyes and clenched jaw, a train and a new deployment with Alex too, a few years of fighting and killing and falling in love, Holland and shrapnel in leg and chest, home again and two weeks in a hospital, months alone with nothing but letters, an end to the war and Alex on his couch, Alex’s romance, and Tommy’s unfounded, shameful jealousy.

But now, what to do with this information? Tommy groaned under his breath and tucked the letters back into their box, watching Alex write through the doorway, wistful and more than a little dejected.

Still, he’d survived a thousand things: heartbreak was easy.

 

•••

 

After a week of deliberation and Alex’s relentless encouragement, Tommy applied to medical school and came home with two giant anatomy textbooks. Alex smiled at him over dinner with pride, and Tommy ducked his head, pretending to study a cut on his hand.

It felt good to have something to do again, the weeks of relentless nothingness finally gone. Besides, a distraction from Alex was always welcome.

His leg ached less and less and he finally got to shove the cane in the back of his closet for the foreseeable future, and Alex had cheered.

Winter had finally decided to stay, blanketing London in a sheen of silvery frost, and Alex said he was holding out hope for snow. It was indeed beautiful, the city glinting in moonlight, the kids down the street sliding down the hill and the sudden briskness spiking life into them again after a dragging autumn.

Tommy came home from his first class with a Christmas wreath, and the light in Alex’s eyes when he saw it on the door convinced him to bring a tree the next day.

A friend of Alex’s named Margaret, whose boyfriend had died that day in Holland, came over with a basket of pastries, and she’d easily drifted into their life more and more as December rolled forward.

It felt homey and comfortable and perfect and Tommy lit candles in the window sills on Christmas Eve. Alex bought a little music box that played _Jingle Bells_ and left it running on repeat, a small celebration of their own.

 

•••

 

Christmas and New Years passed and still the cold lingered. Tommy came home from classes with his nose tipped crimson and flopped on the rug before the fireplace for a bit while Alex laughed at him good-naturedly. Margaret brought more pastries and Alex got a gig at the Aberdeen Press, writing weekly segments about funny war stories. A morbid way of boosting morale, but nevertheless, Tommy enjoyed them. Maybe that had more to do with the author.

Things were disturbingly good. Tommy felt oddly happy and life had fallen into a comfortable routine of school and work and Alex. Still, the water crept into his dreams, and Alex had to shake him awake more than he cared to admit.

And, of course, the feelings lingered.

Alex was still pretty and funny and smart and Tommy still felt helpless under his gaze and he still traced the words in that letter like his mother had traced the spine of her Bible and hoped, hoped, hoped.

Nothing had been said about the girl he loved (though, come to think of it, Alex had never said it was a _girl_ ), and Tommy didn’t want to poke the hive.

Things were good, but not good enough.

 

•••

 

Tommy dreamt of the water again, creeping up in the space between his fingers and slipping down his throat into his lungs until he felt like he was going to collapse in on himself until Alex’s voice and a rough shake snapped him back to reality and his bedroom and those dark eyes above him.

“Fuck, Tommy, what was that?”

Tommy shrugged, breathing quickly in an attempt to gain control of himself. It didn’t help that Alex was hovering over him like that.

Alex worked his bottom lip for a moment. “I gotta tell you something. You’re okay, right?”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

“Okay. Can I tell you?”

Tommy nodded, not bothering to sit up. He’d hold onto the position for future reference (his stomach curled at the idea, either in interest or shame or a dastardly combination).

“So, you remember Holland?”

“Of course I remember Holland.”

“How much do you remember of the… the stuff?”

 _Fucking hell._ “A bit. I remember the grenade and you and the truck. That’s about it.” The lie bit back.

Alex swallowed. “Me?”

“Yeah, you- you had your hands on my hips to keep me down and the medic was doing what he could and there was a lot of blood.”

“Your leg looked like pasta.”

Tommy snorted. “’spose so.”

“Anything else?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Alex sat back and Tommy bit down on the petulant whine building in his throat. “You don’t remember anything I said?”

Tommy shook his head. They stayed there in the quiet for a moment, the darkness less pressing than usual, the moonlight glinting off of Alex’s eyes.

“I guess that makes things harder,” Alex said at last, the tiniest bit of a sigh in his voice.

“Alex, what?”

“I told you I loved you, but since you had, like, half a car in your leg, I doubt you were in the right mind to hear anything at all.”

Tommy hacked, choking on his own breath. “I’m sorry, but what?”

Alex ducked his head. “Yeah, it’s dumb and weird and please don’t tell anyone-.”

“No, no, no!” Tommy scrambled to sit up and grab at Alex’s hands, warm and clenched tight enough to break. “No. I’m just surprised.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Quiet fell again, Alex still looking down at his lap, Tommy’s hands wrapped tight around his, the darkness slipping into the back of his mind. His heart was pounding. (They were so close and Alex’s lips looked heavenly and holy shit, was it all real?)

Everything was so close, just within reach, and Tommy was grasping at the last shreds of his courage. If only he could gather his thoughts and weave together a sentence or two and say something, anything, everything to explain himself.

Alex coughed. “Still do.”

“Me too.”

Alex sighed and they sank into each other like the ocean, slipping into place at long last. It felt perfect and Tommy wondered if he could press his lips somewhere just for the sake of it, except Alex beat him to it.

 

•••

 

When he was little, Tommy had been fascinated with the sky. He’d taken out stacks and stacks of books on stars and planets and the space between them, and he remembered the newspapers splashed with Pluto and he had felt giddy.

He’d watched the stars through his grandfather’s telescope, an untouched cup of milk at his feet and the taste of awe in his mouth. He hadn’t seen much, but he knew it was there and it was enough.

Tommy had loved supernovas the most though- the brilliant death of one life spawning thousands more. He’d imagined they were colorful, splashed with the entire rainbow, deafening and silent at once, brighter than the sun and maybe even heaven.

There, in his own infinitely murky universe, a supernova was born. His old life was gone, exploded into vibrant dust, and something new was forming, sweet and rare and glorious. Alex’s lips tasted like honey and Tommy gasped beneath them, eyes wider than they should be in a kiss.

Still, he loved it, as strange and spontaneous and shameful as it was.

(And more importantly, he loved _Alex_.)

**Author's Note:**

> historical stuff:  
> • i don’t know if anything specifically ww2-related happened in envermeu, france, but it’s very very close to dieppe, where the dieppe raid of 1942 occurred. i’ll just be over here, making assumptions.  
> • the “hellhole on the dutch border” is operation veritable/battle of reichswald, which took place in february 1945  
> • pluto was discovered in 1930 and was neat
> 
> oh also did this make sense? it didn't yeet. i just kinda wrote it over the course of a week and i'll probably go back and edit the shit out of it to make a plot but thats a lot of work


End file.
